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Book 3) 1 V" 



PRESENTED BY 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST 



BY 

LEMUEL WHITAKER 

OF THE NORTH-EAST MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL OF PHILADELPHIA 



[Keprinted from the Publications of the Modern Language Association 
of America, Vol. XVIII, No. 3.] 



baltimore 

The Modern Language Association of America 

1903 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST 



BY 

LEMUEL WHITAKER 

OF THE NORTH-EAST MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL OP PHILADELPHIA 



[Reprinted from the Publications of the Modern Language Association 
of America, Vol. XVIII, No. 3.] 



baltimore 

The Modern Language Association of America 

1903 



T^ 



> 



^1 



^ 



Gift 

The University 

I '04 



This monograph is part of an original study of Drayton 
during five years of pleasant work in the Graduate Depart- 
ment of the University of Pennsylvania. I am glad of this 
opportunity to acknowledge my debt to Professor Felix E. 
Schelling, whose sympathetic and stimulating helpfulness 
made my work possible. 

L. W. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 

Contemporary allusions to Drayton's contact with the 
Elizabethan drama are not very numerous. We know that 
he had some contact; and duriug the year 1598 he did 
a great deal of dramatic work. In his Elegy to Reynolds 
(1627), wherein he speaks of "poets and poesie," there are 
reminiscent suggestions of Marlowe, Nashe, Shakspere, Jouson, 
Chapman, and Beaumont. But the strain of this very poem 
seems to hint that his memory was more tenacious of epic 
and lyric associations. In 1598, Meres in his Palladis Tamia 
puts Drayton among the writers " best for tragedie," along 
with Marlowe, Peele, Kyd, Shakspere, Chapman, Dekker, 
and Jonson. 1 Drayton's dramatic period paralleled the dra- 
matic incident called "The War of the Theatres." Mr. Fleay 
finds Drayton in the current of this strife. 2 Dr. Penniman, 
however, in his careful survey, does not associate Drayton 
with this dramatic contest. 3 

How close Drayton was to Shakspere and Jonson is not 
known. He seems to have come to London about the time 
Shakspere left Stratford. Tradition tells us that Drayton 
was with Shakspere and Jonson at New Place just prior to 
the death of the great dramatist in 1616. Drayton was a 
patient of Dr. Hall, the son-in-law of Shakspere. Both 
Drayton and Jonson worked for Henslowe, but never in 
collaboration. Mr. Fleay asserts that Shakspere had an early 
companionship with Drayton in the Chamberlain's company 
and that it terminated in a misunderstanding in 1597. 4 This 
is mere conjecture. 

1 Meres, Palladis Tamia, edited by Haslewood, 1815, Ancient Critical 
Essays, n, p. 150. 

2 Fleay, Life and Work of Shakespeare, 1886, p. 293. 

3 Penniman, The War of the Theatres, Publications of the University of 
Pennsylvania, 1897. 

4 Fleay, Life of Shakespeare, p. 78. 

378 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 379 

Drayton's name has been associated with thirty-three plays. 
Twenty-four are positively attributed to him wholly or in 
part by Henslowe's Diary. 1 These we shall call the Hens- 
lowe group. Nine are conjecturally attributed to him, wholly 
or in part, by Mr. Fleay. These we shall call the Fleay 
group. 

So far as positive evidence is concerned, all is contained in 
the Diary. Outside of that, all is tradition or conjecture. 
Mr. Fleay has associated the following plays with the name of 
Drayton : — Sir Thomas More, The Merry Devil of Edmonton, 
some revision of the second and the third parts of Henry VI, 
The Life and Death of Thomas Lord Cromwell, The London 
Prodigal, The Yorkshire Tragedy, the revision of Richard III, 
and the Induction of the Taming of the Shrew. 2 

The association of these plays with Drayton is based upon 
certain theories deduced by Mr. Fleay from a study of the 
Henslowe group. These theories have been followed to a 
greater or less degree by Mr. Elton. 3 If the theories are not 
tenable, Drayton's association with the plays falls with the 
theories. 

Drayton's dramatic associations suggest many interesting 
topics. What was the relation of Henslowe to the Admiral's 
men ? What was the relation of an unattached writer of the 
Popular School to the theatre? What was the financial value 
of an ephemeral drama? and what were the earnings of a 
dramatist of the Popular School for his pen work, as distinct 
from the receipts of an actor or a shareholder in a theatrical 
company? The writers of the Popular School were often 
very prolific. Dekker had forty years of productive activity. 

1 Diary of Philip Henslowe, edited by Collier for the Shakespeare Society, 
1845. 

2 Fleay, Life and Work of Shakespeare, 1886. See Index, p. 361, and pp. 
27, 31, 41, 131, 158, 226. 

Fleay, Biographical Chronicle of the Elizabethan Drama, 1891, vol. I, pp. 
142, 161. 

3 Elton, Introduction to Michael Drayton, Spenser Society Publications, 
1895, pp. 26, 27. 



380 LEMUEL WHITAKER. 

Heywood said himself that he had " either an entire hand or 
at least a main finger " in two hundred and twenty plays. 1 
Rowley's name is attached to fifty-five plays. Webster wrote 
seventeen. It becomes an interesting question as to what 
these plays were worth financially to their authors and 
collaborators. 

When we touch Drayton's group, other interesting ques- 
tions are suggested. What in general was the relation of 
author and patron in Elizabethan England ? Were dramatic 
writers really ashamed of their work ? Did men of genius 
or of literary repute hesitate to labor in the drama ? Upon 
some of these topics Drayton's career may throw side-lights. 

As an appendix to this article there is a table of the 
Henslowe group of plays. From this table we learn that 
Drayton was concerned in at least twenty-four pieces. These 
twenty-four plays cost Henslowe £133, 9s, or an average of 
£5, 10s per play. 2 There is of course an element of error. 
I think we may safely state that six pounds in money was 
the average price. The Diary states this sum to have been 
the contract price for William Longsword, Mother Redcap, 
Henry I., Mad Man's Morris, Hannibal and Hermes, Chance 
Medley. The three parts of the Civic Wars in France, 
Connan, and Wolsey, each cost six pounds. And when we 
have a full record of other plays, their price varies not much 
from this sum. 3 

We notice also that most of this work was done by Drayton 
in 1598. He began late in 1597 with Mother Redcap. In 
this year we have seventeen plays. After this he seems to 
have given up dramatic work. During 1599 he has only 
three plays; in 1600, one play; in 1601, one play, and that 
upon a subject especially attractive to Drayton ; and in 
1602 he is credited with two plays, one of them upon the 

1 Heywood, Introduction to The English Traveler. 

2 Fleay, Chronicle, I, p. 125. The price of Patient Grissell was £6. 

3 Henslowe, p. xxv, has additional figures on the price of plays. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 381 

popular theme of Julius Caesar. Drayton seldom went 
beyond Britain for his themes. 

During 1598, Drayton earned about forty pounds with his 
dramatic work. If we estimate the value of money as five 
times what it is to-day, we have the sum of one thousand 
dollars. The year before, Drayton had published his most 
popular and successful work, England's Heroieal Epistles. 
This was one of the great literary successes of the day. It 
must have yielded him some money. Hence, at this particu- 
lar period we find Drayton with many patrons, hosts of 
friends, a splendid literary reputation, and probably a fair 
income. Moreover, he must have been a very busy man. 
For, as we shall see farther on, he was engaged upon other 
literary ventures while he was working at the drama. 

Drayton's own part in these twenty-four plays it is im- 
possible to determine, since nearly all of them have perished. 
He is credited as the sole author of the play Longsword or 
Longberd. He was to receive six pounds for it. We are not 
positive that these two names refer to the same play. I have 
regarded the entries as of one play upon which five pounds 
were paid. The play is not extant, and Henslowe has entered 
no record that it was ever completed. All the other plays 
were in collaboration. 

Drayton had eight collaborators. In 1598 he worked 
with Antony Munady, Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle, and 
Robert Wilson, Jr. In 1599 and 1600, Richard Hath way 
joined in the production of Tudor and Constance. In 1601 
Went worth Smith worked with him upon Wolsey. And as 
late as 1602 we find our author writing in partnership 
with Webster and Micldleton. His association with Munady, 
Dekker, and Chettle began early and lasted long. Wilson 
does not appear after 1599. Mr. Fleay says this was Robert 
Wilson, Jr., who was buried at Cripplegate, November 20, 
1600. Of Went worth Smith nothing is known outside of 
Henslowe's Diary, and the only play in which any of this 
Smith's work has come down to us is Heywood's Royal King 



382 LEMUEL WHITAKER. 

and Loyal Subject. Hath way also is known only from the 
Diary. 

With these Henslowe plays as a starting point, some of 
Drayton's biographers, notably Mr. Fleay, who is followed 
by Mr. Elton, indulge in speculations that invite study. 
They assert that about 1597 Drayton lost his patrons; for 
four or five years, from 1599 to 1602, he produced nothing 
for the press ; he became very poor, and perforce associated 
with Philip Henslowe for the sake of bread and butter. 
That this is a period when Drayton seems to have been in 
financial distress. That after 1598 he wrote for another 
company in addition to Henslowe's, and so we have the 
Fleay group of plays from his pen. That in 1602 he 
met Sir Walter Aston, and thereupon his prospects began to 
brighten and his fortunes to mend. Then he quit play-writ- 
ing, because it was to him a degradation. And because of 
this antipathy he never published any of his dramatic work. 
Let me quote at length from Mr. Fleay : — 

"In 1597 we reach a distinct epoch in Drayton's career. 
He was at this time driven by necessity and the failure of his 
patron's promises to write for the theatre. He continued to 
do so for five years ; and not till after the accession of 
James, and his meeting with a new patron in Sir W. Aston, 
was he able to give up this, to him, unpalatable occupation. 

" It is specially to be noted that he, like Beaumont, never 
allowed his name to appear in print as an author for the 
stage. The only published play in which we positively know 
him to have been concerned (Sir' John Oldcastle) bore on its 
title-page ' by William Shakespeare.' As no play by Monday, 
Wilson, or Hathway, his co-adjutors in this one, was ever 
attributed to Shakespeare, and as Drayton was the only one 
of the four ever connected with Shakespeare's company of 
players, it becomes a matter of great interest to investigate 
what connexion Drayton may have had with other plays 
wrongly attributed by publishers or tradition to the great 
dramatist. For if this attribution of the Oldcastle play was 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 383 

due to Drayton's connexion with it, as it manifestly was, the 
same thing may have happened in cases hitherto unsuspected. 

" From the list of plays written for Henslowe many results 
follow, important for Drayton's biography. It is evident 
from the smallness of the sums advanced in some instances 
that it was during this period that money was urgently needed 
by him. Moreover not one of these twenty-four plays was 
ever published with Drayton's name attached to it, and only 
one published at all. He evidently regarded his connexion 
with the stage as a degradation. 

"A further examination of Henslowe's list shows that of 
the twenty-four plays there given, eighteen were written in 
about a year, in 1598; while in the remaining four years, 
1599-1603, during which Drayton continued to write for the 
stage he only assisted in producing six plays for Henslowe. 
It seems probable that during this time he must have been 
writing also for another company; he had to live, had lost 
his patronage from the Bedford family, and certainly pro- 
duced nothing for the press." ' 

I quote also from Mr. Elton : — 

"Drayton's career from 1598 to the end of the reign is 
obscure. It is only known that despite his fame he was a 
theatrical hack, little patronised, poor, and co-operating with 
fourth-rate men. It is a barren and dejected chapter. . . . 
About Christmas, 1597, he first seems to have joined one of 
the needy syndicates dependent upon Henslowe. . . . This is 
a sorry record." 2 

These opinions call for a study of the patronage of Drayton ; 
his literary work during his dramatic period ; his poverty ; 
and his repugnance to the drama. 

The subject of the character and extent of the patronage 
extended to the Elizabethan authors has never been fully 
worked up. It offers a broad field for original investigation. 

1 Fleay, Chronicles, I, pp. 150, 151. 

2 Elton, Introduction to Drayton^ pp. 25, 26. 



384 LEMUEL WHITAKER. 

The practice of seeking a patron seems to have been quite 
genera], and was founded on conditions that extend far back 
into the Middle Ages. Shakspere was exceptionally inde- 
pendent, yet even he enjoyed the favor of Southampton. 
Ben Jonson's tributes to noble families are numerous and, in 
addition, he was always welcome at Court. His income came 
almost entirely from patronage. He told Drummond that 
" of his plays he never gained two hundred pounds." x 

It seems to have been necessary for a playwright to depend 
upon something extraneous for a livelihood. 2 Hence many 
dramatic authors identified themselves with a theatre or its 
company. In the later period of his life Shakspere was 
earning above six hundred pounds a year in money of the 
period. 3 This was largely due to the receipts of the theatre 
in which he was a large holder. 

It is difficult to estimate the money value of patronage and 
dedication. This latter was often inspired by gallantry, 
gratitude, or friendship. Sometimes dedicatory lines were 
written for a fee. Ward tells us that the ordinary fee for 
these complimentary efforts was forty shillings. 4 

In the case of Drayton, it must not be forgotten that in 
1598 he had behind him a successful career as a poet. His 
pastorals, his sonnets, his legends, his epic of Mortimer, had 
all appeared. In 1597 he issued his Heroical Epistles. This 
was his most successful work. Edition after edition was 
called for by popular appreciation. And it was upon the 
completion of these Epistles that he next began to work on 
the drama. At this moment his fortunes were very bright. 

Drayton was never without some patron to whom he might 
dedicate his newest work. In 1590 he offered the first out- 
pourings of his muse to Lady Devereux; and in 1630, forty 

1 Jonson, Conversations with Drummond, printed for Shakespeare Society, 
1842, p. 35. 

2 Ward, History of English Dramatic Literature, 1899, I, 448. 

3 Lee, Life of William Shakespeare, 1899, pp. 198, 204. 

4 Ward, Dramatic Literature, in, 256, note. 



MICHAEL DEAYTON AS A DEAMATIST. 385 

years later, he tendered his last work to Lord and Lady 
Dorset. Lady Dorset placed a monument to his memory in 
Westminster Abbey. During these forty years he had hosts 
of friends : many of them noble, whom he addressed once 
and again. These included the king, the princes of the royal 
blood, prominent and influential noblemen and their ladies. 
Queen Elizabeth I think he did not directly address, although 
his Eglogs contain the Song to Beta after the manner of 
Spenser's Song to Eliza in the Shepherds' Calendar. 

With some of these patrons Drayton was on terms of inti- 
mate association and manly dependence. This is notably true 
of the Gooderes, the Bedfords, and Sir Walter Aston. Drayton 
seems to have made friends and kept them loug. His friend- 
ship for Anne Goodere lasted throughout his life. He was 
close to Aston from 1602 until long after the publication 
of Polyolbion. His association with Shakspere and Jonson 
seems to have covered a long period, and as late as 1627 he 
pays them a tribute in his elegy to Reynolds. His relations 
with Drummond, Wither, Browne, are all pleasant. So, too, 
with noble friends : he had many, he gave them many a 
tribute, and he was the recipient of many a bounty that he 
does not hesitate to acknowledge with a grateful pen. The 
idea that he lampooned the Countess of Bedford under the 
name of Selena in the eighth Eglog of the 1606 edition is 
wholly foreign to the character of the man as well as con- 
trary to the facts of his relation to her as his patroness. 1 
Drayton frequently revised his work and changed his dedica- 
tions. This change may have been for no other purpose 
than freshness and contemporaneousness. 

The following statement of Drayton's patrons from 1594 
to 1605 includes the author's entire dramatic period. Our 
authorities for the facts are the bibliography at the end of 
Elton's monograph ; Fleay's Chronicle of the English Drama, 
vol. I, p. 138; and the Spenser Society's reprints of Drayton's 
works : — 

1 Elton, Introduction to Drayton, p. 9. 



386 LEMUEL WHITAKER. 

1594, Matilda. Dedication to Mistress Lucie Harrington. 
Ideas Mirrow. Dedicatory sonnet to Sir Anthony Cooke. 

1595, Endimion and Phoebe. Dedicatory sonnet to Lucy, 
Countess of Bedford : 

" Great Lady, essence of my chiefest good." 

1596, Mortimeriados. Stanzas and Sonnets to Countess of 
Bedford. Legends. Dedication in prose to Lucy of Bedford 
and in verse to Lady Anne Harrington. 

1597, England's Heroical Epistles. Dedication to the Earl 
and the Countess of Bedford. 

1598, Epistles, as above. 

1599, Epistles and Sonnets. Dedication and dedicatory verses 
as above. 

1600, Epistles and Sonnets. I cannot learn whether the 
dedication is missing here. But I gather from Mr. Fleay 1 
that the sonnet to the Countess of Bedford is retained in the 
Sonnets. 

1602, Epistles and Sonnets. The dedication to the Epistles 
is here omitted ; wherefore Mr. Fleay argues that Drayton 
broke with the Bedfords about 1601. This edition contains 
fifty-nine sonnets. I cannot learn positively whether the 
Bedford sonnet reappears in this issue ; but I infer that it 
does for two reasons : First, Mr. Fleay does not speak of the 
omission. 2 Were the sonnet absent, he probably would have 
mentioned the fact. Secondly, Mr. Elton says 3 the verses 
are reproduced as before in 1600 and in 1599 ; and we learn 
from Mr. Fleay that the Bedford sonnet is in the edition 
of 1599/ 

1603, The Barrons Warres with the Epistles and the Sonnets. 
This volume is assigned to Ling, October 8, 1602. This 
edition contains sixty-nine sonnets. Mr. Fleay says that 
"in the October 8, 1602 edition the Bedford sonnet was 

1 Fleay, Chronicle, i, p. 153. 2 Fleay, Chronicle, i, p. 153. 

3 Elton, Introduction, p. 72. i Ibid., p. 9. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 387 

permanently withdrawn." This is wrong. Mr. Elton says 
the Bedford sonnet is in this edition. And the Spenser 
Society's reprint of the 1605 edition contains the sonnet. 
Hence there is no omission to show a break between Drayton 
and Bedford. This 1603 edition is dedicated to Drayton's 
new patron, Sir W. Aston. The dedication of Mortimeriados 
and Epistles to Bedford had been withdrawn and Aston's 
name substituted. But Mortimeriados was now old and The 
Barons 7 Wars was practically a new work. And the dedica- 
tion of the Epistles to Bedford had been repeated in 1598 and 
1599 : while the tribute to Lady Bedford had not ceased in 
the sonnet. 

1603, To the Majestie of King James. A gratulatory poem. 

1604, The Owl. Dedicated to Sir W. Aston. A Paean 
Triumphall, to the Majestie of the King. Moyses in the Map 
of his Miracles, to Aston. 

1605, This year witnessed the publication of Drayton's 
first great Anthology, reprinted in two volumes by the 
Spenser Society. The Barrons Warres has a dedicatory sonnet 
to Sir Walter Aston, "my most worthy patron." Then 
follow the Epistles with prose dedications for each pair of 
letters. These prose dedications are warm in their acknowl- 
edgment of " gracious favors to my unworthy selfe." Among 
the patrons with whom Drayton is still upon terms of inti- 
macy are "My very good Lord, Edward Earle of Bedford ; " 
" The excellent Lady, Lucie Countesse of Bedford ; " " The 
Vertuous Lady, the Lady Anne Harrington ; " " My worthy 
and honored friend, Sir Walter Aston ; " " The Right Wor- 
shippful Sir Henry Goodere of Powlesworth, Knight; " "The 
Virtuous Lady, the Lady Francis Goodere, wife to Sir Henry 
Goodere." Then follow the Sonnets ; with particular sonnets 
to the King, to Sir Anthony Cooke, to Lady Harrington, and 
the familiar sonnet to Lady Bedford. 

From this long array of dedications, it is evident that it is 
the idlest conjecture to assume that Drayton had a rupture 
with the Bedfords or the Harringtons. Mr. Fleay's infer- 



388 LEMUEL WHITAKER. 

ence that Drayton's dramatic career was induced by poverty 
consequent upon the failure of his patron's promises, has no 
basis in fact. It is singular that Mr. Elton should have been 
led to accept such an assumption. In 1605, we find Drayton 
on the warmest terms with his old friends, the Gooderes, the 
Harringtons, the Bedfords, and Sir Anthony Cooke. Also 
he has a new friend in Aston. It is to be noticed, moreover, 
that Drayton did most of his work for Henslowe in 1598. 
In this year his earnings from his plays were largest. But 
even Mr. Fleay does not suggest any lack of patronage at 
that date. 

In addition to loss of patrons, Mr. Fleay assumes that 
during the four years from 1599 to 1603 Drayton "certainly 
produced nothing for the press." 

An examination of Drayton's literary work will be interest- 
ing in this connection. Our author was a voluminous writer, 
a tireless worker. At the same time he was a somewhat 
leisurely man. He was apt to set himself a huge task and 
ply it with steady industry until the end was attained. He 
seems never to have been idle ; projecting new things and 
recasting old things made busy a long reach of life. 

From his coming to London, about 1587, to 1597 he had a 
period of great creative activity. In 1587 he wrote the 
dirge to Sidney, in 1591 the Harmony of the Church. Then 
follow in chronological order the pastorals, the sonnets ? 
Endimion and Phoebe, Mortimeriados, until the period culmi- 
nated in the magnificent epic success, England's Heroical 
Epistles. During this period of ten years, Drayton's work 
was almost exclusively creative. He revised and republished 
almost nothing. Piers Gaveston and Matilda (1593-4) were 
reissued in 1596 to make a trilogy of legends with Robert of 
Normandy. This was the only republication. In view 
of the common assertion that Drayton was always refiling 
and polishing, the wholly original character of the work of 
this decade suggests a new conception of Drayton's mastery 
of his art. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 389 

Next comes the period from 1597 to 1605. This was 
almost wholly a period of reconstructing and recasting his 
former work. The only important creative attempt was 
his dramas. He wrote two poems to James, very unim- 
portant. But the period was one of great literary activity. 
The sedulous filing, the wholesale recasting, the indefatigable 
labor given to the perfecting of his work, all show Drayton 
as a model for our own age, whose feat is to make a list of 
the best hundred books that have been written and published 
during the current fortnight. Drayton's creative period had 
been crowned by the Heroical Epistles. These were his chief 
work, very popular, and the consummation of the activity 
and aspiration of a decade. Edition after edition was de- 
manded. As Drayton satisfied this popular demand by 
repeated issues, he also revised and republished his earlier 
works. The sonnets reappeared in 1599, 1600, 1602, 1603, 
and 1605; and in each issue the changes were many and 
important. The epistles were reissued, "newly enlarged 
and corrected," in 1598, 1599, 1600, 1602, 1603, and 1605. 
The work put upon Mortimer iados was remarkable. Drayton 
was dissatisfied with the poem both as to form and content. 
"As at first the dignitie of the thing was the motive of the 
doing, so the cause of this my second greater labour was 
the insufficient handling of the firste." Mortimer iados had 
been written in the rime-royal of the Mirror for Magistrates — 
a book that Drayton was very familiar with and to whose 
1610 edition he made a contribution. Dissatisfied with this 
stanza, he recast the entire poem into Ariosto's ottava rima 
and renamed it The Barrons Warres. This work of revision 
must have equaled that of the original effort. In his preface 
he remarks that " it were more than boldness to venter on so 
noble an argument without leisure and studie competent." 
The new volume appeared in 1603. Hence from 1599 to 
1603, the period in which Mr. Fleay says Drayton produced 
t nothing for the press, there were issued at least three " newly 
enlarged and corrected " editions of the Sonnets and the 
4 



390 LEMUEL WHITAKEE. 

Epistles; the Barrons Warres was written, and in 1603 it 
appeared with another edition of both the Sonnets and 
Epistles. During 1598, he was at work upon eighteen 
dramas; and Meres tells us that in 1598 "Michael Drayton 
is now penning in English verse a poem called Polyolbion." x 
All Drayton's work upon his new editions must have been 
done after 1598, for that year was crowded with the drama. 
Nor must we overlook the half-dozen dramas that Drayton 
assisted in during 1599 to 1602. In 1605 appeared Drayton's 
great anthology. This volume was carefully edited ; it has a 
new dedication to Aston ; each pair of Epistles has a dedi- 
catory preface, and there are also inserted many commendatory 
poems from other pens. The labor necessary to prepare this 
for the press must have been considerable. Drayton's work 
easily lends itself to division and classification. Until 1597 
we have his first creative period. This culminated in his 
magnificent effort, England's Heroieal Epistles. The next 
eight years are his first reproductive period. This culmi- 
nated in the great anthology of 1605. Its finest single 
product is The Barrons Warres. But the most significant 
product of this period is Drayton's drama. This dramatic 
work was a literary failure, and Drayton probably learned 
his limitations. From 1605 until 1612 there is a second 
creative period. Here the original work consists of the Odes, 
the Legend of Cromwell that was included in the Higgins' 
edition of A Mirror for Magistrates, and the great Polyolbion 
of 1612. A second reproductive period is then closed with 
the folio of 1619. This folio appears midway between those 
of his two friends, Jonson and Shakspere. After 1620, 
Drayton's third creative period employs him until his death. 
Here is his Caroline work, worthy of special study in itself. 
Of all these five periods, the first reproductive term from 
1597 to 1605 was one of his busiest and most important. 
Here are his great epic successes and his great dramatic 

1 Meres, Palladia Tamia, ed. Haslewood, u, p. 151. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 391 

failure. He shows himself to be a Spenserian in both these 
literary modes. 

As another theme for study, let us look at Drayton's 
environment with Henslowe. 

From late in 1597 to the middle of 1602, Drayton received 
from Henslowe, on a liberal estimate, the sum of fifty-two 
pounds. The usually accepted ratio of the values of money 
then and now is five to one : hence, in our money, Drayton's 
dramatic earnings for this period of five years was £260 or 
$1,300. This is au average income of $260 a year— certainly 
not large. But of these earnings, a thousand dollars were 
the receipts for the year 1598 alone. This was his prolific 
year in the drama. After this year's experimental work, he 
turned to his earlier work and revised it for his edition 
of 1605. 

Drayton's period with Henslowe is interesting to the 
student of the Elizabethan drama. Henslowe himself is an 
interesting character. He was a keen business man and a 
successful money-maker. His career was checkered ; his 
businesses various. In early life he was a dyer ; later, a 
dealer in wood ; still later, a pawn-broker. When Drayton 
met him, he seems to have been the banker or financial 
manager of a very successful theatre and a very successful 
dramatic company at whose head was the famous actor 
Allyn. Henslowe seems to have financed the company, made 
money for himself and also for the members of the troupe. 
While a good business man, he seems also to have been 
not unsympathetic in his dealings with author and actor ; 
appreciative of a successful play and of a successful perform- 
ance. When the occasion justified the outlay, he spared no 
money to make a play successful. The expenditures upon 
the Wolsey plays illustrate the point. 1 He had the task of 
managing the money affairs of a group of men to whom the 
real value of money was unknown. He and Allyn ran 

1 Henslowe, pp. 195, 196, 197, 198. 



.392 LEMUEL WHITAKER. 

the Rose ; built the Fortune ; organized and directed a 
successful company of actors ; and supplied the necessities 
of a group of authors, some of whom were improvident and 
reckless in their expenditures. Elizabethan literature is full 
of personalities, but I have not met any contemporary 
lampoon, sarcasm, or harsh criticism against this financial 
backer of the Admiral's men. 1 

Mr. Fleay has drawn a comparison between two dramatic 
and financial methods : 2 — " During Shakspere's career, we 
know of only some two dozen plays having been produced by 
his ' fellows,' in addition to the three dozen included in his 
works ; and of these about two-fifths are anonymous and 
have been, at some time or other, ascribed in whole or in 
part to the great master. It is evident that he had the 
management of the playwriting for his house pretty nearly 
in his own hands, and that his method was the polar opposite 
to that of which we know most, viz., Henslowe's. While 
the latter employed twelve poets in a year, who produced 
for the Admiral's Men a new play every fortnight or so, the 
Chamberlain's Company depended almost entirely on two 
poets at a time and produced not more than four new plays 
a year. Hence the explanation of the vastly higher character 
of the Globe plays as compared with the Fortune : hence, 
also, the explanation of the small pay and needy condition of 
the latter, and their jealousy of the rapid advancement in 
wealth and position of Shakspere, who had virtually a 
monopoly of play-providing for his Company." 

This assumption of Mr. Fleay's is hardly fair. The 
difference was one of genius and personal ability rather than 
one of method. Nor are we sure that, outside of Shakspere's 
own work, there was a " vastly higher character of the 
Globe plays as compared with the Fortune." 3 The Shoe- 

1 The notion that Henslowe was a hard, grasping pawn-broker of plays 
does not seem to be held by Mr. Ordish. V. his Early London Theatres, 
p. 148. 

2 Fleay, Shakespeare, p. 284. s Fleay, Chronicle, i, p. 124. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 393 

maker's Holiday, Patient Grissett, and Fortunatus were played 
by the Admiral's Men : whereas Satiromastix was a Globe 
play ; and The London Prodigal, The Yorkshire Tragedy, 
Pericles, Lord Cromwell were all written for the Globe. As 
to the small pay and needy condition of the Fortune's Men, 
we must remember that Allyn was an actor here ; and we 
have just seen that while actively engaged with Henslowe in 
1598, Drayton was not in needy condition. Nor have we 
learned that Jonson, Drayton, Dekker, Webster, Allyn, were 
jealous of the advance of Shakspere. All this is part of 
the cumulative error gathered around Drayton's dramatic 
career. The owners of the Globe and the owners of the 
Fortune both made money. Both theatres developed talent. 
And Shakspere's success depended, not upon his method, but 
upon a rare genius combined with an aptitude for the practi- 
cal concerns of life. If, correspondent to the Diary of 
Henslowe, we had the account-books of the Globe theatre, 
we should know more of the financial condition of those 
associated with the Globe. 

Another element of the cumulative error that has gathered 
around Drayton's dramatic work is an incautious statement 
by Mr. Elton that Drayton co5perated with " fourth-rate 
men." 1 This statement is hardly true in fact ; certainly not 
in inference. Some of these collaborators may have been 
only hack-writers. Perhaps we do not know : our informa- 
tion is scanty. Certainly Dekker, Webster, and Middleton 
are not to be put into a fourth-rate class. Whatever may 
have been Thomas Dekker's private fortunes or misfortunes, 
the author of Fortunatus or of the lyric Sweet Content will 
not be rated very low in the scale of talent or even of genius. 
Nor does The Duchess of Malfi place Webster at the bottom 
of the list of Elizabethan dramatists. 

Among the authors that sought service with Henslowe, we 
do not find Shakspere, Fletcher, or Beaumont. But we do 

1 Elton, Introduction, p. 26. 



394 LEMUEL WHITAKER. 

find a group of men that may be divided into two classes. 
In the first we may place Jonson, Drayton, Webster, Middleton, 
Chapman, Heywood, Rowley. These men were successful, 
talented, popular. They were authors of some of the greatest 
dramas, epics, and lyrics, that have enriched English literature. 
They were influential men in their day ; literary dictators of 
their times ; and, when they died, they were respected and 
loved, and the memories of some of them are preserved in 
Westminster Abbey. In 1598 some of these men were young 
and were seeking a career with Henslowe, somewhat as a 
modern author seeks a publisher. Chapman was the oldest 
of the group; he was born in 1558 and had reached the age of 
forty. Drayton had not yet touched thirty-five. Heywood 
and Jonson were passing only twenty-six ; and Rowley was 
still in his teens. 1 

A second class may be formed with such names as Dekker, 
Chettle, Hathaway, Mundy. These men are obscure, or 
mediocre, or enemies to themselves. By virtue of his genius, 
Dekker should be put into our first class. But because his 
rare gifts were not accompanied by a tough moral fibre or 
a strong will, he continually thwarted his own ambitions. 
Some of the entries in the diary suggest unfortunate pictures : 2 — 

' ' Lent unto Thomas Downton, 
the 30 of Jenewary 1598 to 
descarge Thomas Dickers 
frome the areaste of my 
lord Chamberlens men. 
I saye lent 3£ 10s." 

Here is one of Dekker's escapades. Poor Chettle was con- 

Birlh-year. Age in 1598. 

1 Chapman 1558 40 

Drayton 1564 34 

Jonson 1572 26 

Heywood c. 1572 26 

Eowley, S 1585 13 

Chettle 1562 36 

Dekker 1567 31 

2 Henslowe, p. 143. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 395 

tinually in debt. 1 Sometimes a fellow-author had to engage 
his word for the completion of Chettle's promised task. At 
one time Henslowe's entry shows Chettle's indebtedness to be 
£8 9s : this is more than the average price for a play. And 
finally there is the following record : 2 — 

"Lent unto Thomas Dowuton 
the xvii of Janewary 1598, to lend 
unto harey chettell, to paye 
his charges in the Marshall — 
sey, the some of ... . xxxs." 

Harry Porter binds himself to serve only Henslowe. Chap- 
man and Bird acknowledge a large indebtedness. 3 We cannot 
tell whether these loans are made by Henslowe personally or 
by Henslowe as agent for the Company : probably the latter. 
Within this group of genius and mediocrity, of thrift and 
unthrift, Michael Drayton is an important figure. He had 
hosts of friends and noble patrons. His literary reputation 
was at its zenith. Meres speaks of him in laudatory strains. 4 
During the year 1598 his earnings were considerable. We 
have many a record of sums 'paid to him ; but no record that 
suggests improvidence or poverty. An examination of the 
entire list of his plays shows that eight of them were paid 
for not in instalments, but each in one sum : Caesar's Fall, 
£5 ; Two Harpies, £3 ; Owen Tudor, £4 ; Oldcastle, parts I 
and II, £14 ; Civil Wars in France, three parts, each £6 ; 
Chance Medley in two payments. But Drayton's share of 
35s was paid to him in one entry after the other collaborators 
had been paid. Most of the other dramas were paid for in 
two or three instalments. Hannibal and Hermes ; or, Worse 
Afeard than Hurt took seven payments for its two parts. 
Richard Cordelions Funeral was paid in very small sums to 
Wilson, Chettle, and Mundy ; but Drayton's share of thirty 
shillings was paid in one sum. In the case of Earl Godwin, 

^Ibid., pp. 126, 127, 134. 2 Henslowe, p. 141. 

3 Ibid., pp. 146, 190, 191. i Meres, Palladis Tamia, ed. Haslewood. 



396 LEMUEL WHITAKER. 

Drayton draws the small sum of ten shillings for himself. 
This is the only instance of a small personal remittance. In 
the case of the play in which he had no collaborators, Long- 
sword or Longberd, he receives the money in two payments* 
In all this record we find nothing to justify Elton's Jeremiad : 1 

" The entries show the wretched haste and poverty of the 
authors to whom Henslowe through his agent doles out ten 
or twenty shillings. We find Drayton receiving these sums 
on loan, doubtless secured upon work yet unwritten. And 
we find him at least on one occasion taking the lion's share 
of the pittance (Godwin, Pt. II)." 

This strain of Elton's has no justification. Drayton re- 
ceived these suras not so much for " work yet unwritten " as 
for work done. Many of the entries read. " in full payment 
of a booke." Nor is there anywhere in Henslowe an entry 
of debt due from Drayton. Six pounds for a play was not a 
" pittance : " it seems to have been the market price. And 
as to Drayton's taking the " lion's share," he probably took 
what he had earned by a lion's share of the work. For the 
second part of Godwin he received two pounds, not thirty 
shillings : and in about ten of the dramas he received almost 
half of the entire sum paid for the play. 2 The whole record 
presents a picture of a talented, hard-working, and prosperous 
man. Drayton's standing with Henslowe was so good that 
in at least two instances he was accepted as sponsor for his 
less fortunate brothers in the craft. 3 There were some unfortu- 
nates working for Henslowe. Haughton was in the Clink 
and Nashe was in the Flete. Gabriel Spenser became deeply 
involved. But Drayton was not in this class. Perhaps 
many a publishing house in its relations to our authors might 
produce a record such as we find in Henslowe's Diary. 
Edgar Allan Poe and James Russell Lowell both worked 
upon Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia : this fact does not 
prove that Lowell was intemperate in his cups. 

1 Elton, Introduction, p. 27. 

2 See table in Appendix. 3 Henslowe, pp. 131, 98, 114, 166. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 397 

We have noted Mr. Fleay's explanation of Drayton's 
entrance in the dramatic field. 1 "He was in 1597 driven by 
necessity and the failure of his patrons' promises to write 
for the theatre. He had to live, he had lost his patronage 
from the Bedford family, and certainly produced nothing for 
the press." We have shown that these contentions by Mr. 
Fleay are not tenable. The question then very naturally 
recurs. Why did Drayton write dramas? 

The answer to this is twofold. He was induced to try 
dramatic work, first, by the influences around him ; and, 
secondly, by the constitution of his mind. These two things 
are somewhat reciprocal. 

The theatre, as an institution of society, had become very 
influential. The theatres were occupied by several success- 
ful companies of actors. The Chamberlain's Men and the 
Admiral's Men especially were drawing the attention of 
ambitious youths eager for a career. Hence many authors 
were turning to the career of the actor and to the theatres as 
an outlet for their pen-products, much as aspiring young 
authors turn to periodicals and magazines to-day. And, 
furthermore, the theatre offered a price for the pen of a 
successful writer, just as to-day a periodical or magazine bids 
for a successful novelist or story-teller. On this general 
theme, Brandes remarks : 2 " Every Englishman of talent 
in Elizabeth's time could write a tolerable play, just as 
every second Greek in the age of Pericles could model a 
tolerable statue, or as every European of to-day can write 
a passable newspaper article. Between 1557 and 1616 there 
were forty noteworthy and two hundred and thirty-three 
inferior English poets who issued works in epic or lyric 
form ; yet the characteristic of the period was the immense 
rush of productivity in the direction of dramatic art. The 
Englishmen of that time were born dramatists, as the Greeks 

1 Fleay, Chronicle, I, 150. 

2 Georg Brandes, William Shakspere, published by Heineman of London, 
1898, i, p. 128. 



398 LEMUEL WHITAKER. 

were born sculptors, and as we hapless moderns are born 
journalists. The Greek with an inborn sense of form had 
constant opportunities for observing the nude human body 
and admiring its beauty. If he saw a man ploughing a 
field, he received a hundred impressions and ideas as to the 
play of the muscles in the naked leg. The modern Euro- 
pean possesses a certain command of language, is practical in 
argument, has a knack of putting thoughts and events into 
words, and is finally a confirmed newspaper reader — all 
characteristics which make for the multiplication of news- 
paper articles. The Englishman of that day was keenly 
observant of human destinies and of passions which revelled 
in the brief freedom of the Renascence. Life itself was 
dramatic; as in Greece it was plastic; as in our day it is 
journalistic, photographic — that is to say, striving in vain 
to give permanence to formless and everyday events and 
thoughts." 

We may say, then, that it was natural for Drayton to 
essay the drama because of his environment. But, secondly, 
it was logical for Drayton not only to write dramas but to 
write them just when he did. Earlier in our study we have 
remarked that Drayton attempted every literary vogue. The 
pastoral, the sonnet, the patriotic epic, the song, and then 
the drama ; all forms were his. Nor must we overlook a 
very prominent trait of our author : a trait so characteristic 
that he may be dubbed the tardy Drayton. He seldom 
ventured upon a new literary mode until some one had paved 
the way for him. In 1597-8 the drama was a successful 
literary form that well might invite our author. While this 
was true of the general drama, it was essentially true of a 
certain development of the drama that must have appealed 
irresistibly to Drayton upon the success of his epic form in 
the Heroical Epistles. I refer to the Chronicle play. 

Professor Schelling's latest volume, 1 The English Chronicle 
Play, gives us for the first time a view of this great patriotic 

1 Felix E. Schelling, The English Chronicle Play, 1902. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 399 

literature. The Heroical Epistles appeared at the time when 
interest in the great chronicle dramas was culminating. 
Shakspere's historical plays parallel Drayton's first creative 
period with Henry VI in 1592 to Henry IV in 1597-8 and 
Henry Fin 1599. When he finished his great chronicle epic, 
what more natural than that the " tardy " Drayton should 
now venture upon a chronicle in dramatic form? And an 
examination of this Henslowe group of plays shows that 
this is exactly what was done. We can only conjecture as 
to the content of Drayton's plays. Their titles however 
assure us of the correctness of our conclusions. He began 
with the Chronicle theme of William Longsword ; and at 
least fifteen of this group of plays are on historical subjects : 
William Longsword, Owen Tudor, Henry I., Wolsey, the two 
parts of Godwin, Richard, the three parts of the Civil Wars, 
Connan, the two parts of Oldcastle, Piers of Exton, and Piers 
of Winchester. Drayton was thoroughly patriotic. He touches 
this note in his early pastorals where he chants his refrain to 
Beta; he reproduces it in his sonnets ; it is the burden of his 
legends, epistles, and Barons' Wars; it is continued in his 
odes of 1606 ; and his great spirit rises into loyal rapture all 
through his Polyolbion, wherein he sings the entire line of 
heroes and sovereigns down to Elizabeth. And this is the 
spirit that largely permeates his dramatic themes. 

Another question that arises in connection with this study 
is, why did Drayton not publish his plays? 

Of these twenty-four plays in the Henslowe group, there 
has come down to us only one. This is an edition of the 
first part of Sir John Oldcastle, an edition probably pirated 
by Pavier in 1600, and issued under the name of Shakspere. 
The same year, Pavier issued another edition without Shak- 
spere's name : Mr. Elton takes the opposite view as to the 
succession of these editions. 1 As far as we know, this is the 
only play of the group that was ever published. Hence 
the natural question, why were they not published ? 

1 Elton, Introduction, p. 73. 



400 LEMUEL WHITAKER. 

Mr. Fleay gives an explanation in the passage that has 
been previously quoted: 1 "Moreover not one of these twenty- 
four plays was ever published with Drayton's name attached 
to it, and only one published at all. He evidently regarded 
his connection with the stage as a degradation." 

Any answer that is advanced to this question concerning 
Drayton will probably be insufficient. Because of our lack 
of knowledge a reply can be only a conjectural opinion. To 
me, Mr. Fleay 's reply is very unsatisfactory. Not only is it 
a presumption without proof ; but it assumes a social condi- 
tion that is too frequently asserted without controversial 
comment. There has been published no adequate or specific 
study of the social status of an Elizabethan playwright or 
actor. 2 Perhaps a scholarly investigation of the theme might 
modify our modern point of view in regard to it. It is a 
common statement that the Elizabethan dramatist, actor, 
theatre, were all in social and moral ill-repute. If a reputa- 
ble man worked as a playwright, he tried to conceal his 
connection with the work. This has been the source of an 
argument in favor of the Baconian authorship of Shakspere's 
plays. Mr. Fleay cites Beaumont as one that never allowed 
his name to appear in print in connection with his dramas. 3 
Other biographers represent Beaumont, after his marriage, 
retiring to his country home because of social risk from 
connection with the theatre. Mr. Halliwell-Phillips states 
the case thus : 4 — " It must be borne in mind that actors then 
occupied an inferior position in society and that in many 
quarters even the vocation of a dramatic writer was con- 
sidered scarcely respectable. The intelligent appreciation of 
genius by individuals was not sufficient to neutralize in these 

1 Fleay, Chronicle, I, p. 150. John R. Macarthur of Chicago University 
is now, 1903, editing The Play of Sir John Oldcaslle. 

2 Dr. Morris W. Croll, lately a Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, 
has an unpublished paper on this general subject. 

3 Fleay, Chronicle, n, p. 150. 

4 Halliwell-Phillips, Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, 1898, I, p. v. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 401 

matters the effect of public opinion and the animosity of the 
religious world." 

Without many specific facts to justify his conclusions, Mr. 
Georg Brandes has scattered throughout his two volumes 
upon Shakspere a sentiment somewhat similar to the above. 
He says : l "In the view of the time, theatrical productions 
as a whole were not classed as literature. It was regarded as 
dishonorable for a man to sell his work first to a theatre and 
then to a bookseller. We know how much ridicule Ben 
Jonson incurred when first among English poets he, in 1616, 
published his plays in a folio." And again we quote : 2 " We 
learn from the sonnets to what a degree Shakspere was 
oppressed and tormented by his sense of the contempt in 
which the actor's calling was held. The scorn of ancient 
Rome for the mountebank, the horror of ancient Judea for 
whoever disguised himself in the garments of the other sex, 
and finally the age-old hatred of Christianity for theatres and 
all the temptations that follow in their train — all these 
thoughts had been handed down from generation to genera- 
tion, and, as Puritanism grew in strength and gained the 
upper hand, had begotten a contemptuous tone of public 
opinion under which so sensitive a nature as Shakspere's 
could not but suffer keenly." Mr. Brandes then gives a 
rather fantastic interpretation of many sonnet-expressions to 
show "why the great dramatist complained of being "in dis- 
grace with fortune and men's eyes." 

In this same spirit, Mr. Ward quotes Drayton's line to 

Shakspere 

"one that traffiqued with the stage" 

as having a half-contemptuous turn. 3 

To such an extreme has this sentiment been repeated 
without investigation, that Mr. Warton not only speaks of 
players and theatres as being held in low estimation, but 

1 Brandes, William Shakespeare, I, p. 25. 

2 Brandes, i, p. 347. 3 Ward, Dramatic Literature, i, p. 500. 



402 LEMUEL WHITAKER. 

puts the poets into the same class. 1 He says, " John Hey- 
wood died at Mechlin in Brabant about the year 1577. He 
was inflexibly attached to the Catholic cause and, on the 
death of Queen Mary, quitted the kingdom. Antony Wood 
remarked with his usual acrimony that it was a matter of 
wonder with many that considering the great and usual want 
of principle in the profession, a poet should become a volun- 
tary exile for the sake of religion." 

In contradiction to all this, other modern critics sometimes 
take an opposite view. 2 In his Outlines, Mr. Halliwell-Phillips 
states that literature was almost the only passport of the lower 
and middle classes to the nobility. As to any argument that 
may be based upon Shakspere's sonnets, Mr. Sidney Lee says 
that if any self-reproach or fortune-chiding may be drawn 
from them, this "only reflected an evanescent mood. His 
interest in all that touched the efficiency of his profession was 
permanently active. He was a keen critic of actors' elocution, 
and in Hamlet shrewdly denounced their common failings, but 
clearly and hopefully pointed out the road to improvement. 
His highest ambitions lay, it is true, elsewhere than in acting, 
and at an early period of his theatrical career he undertook, 
with triumphant success, the labors of a playwright. But he 
pursued the profession of an actor loyally and uninterruptedly 
until he resigned all connection with the theatre within a few 
years of his death." 

This whole subject has not yet been satisfactorily treated. 
It offers an interesting field for investigation. These various 
opinions as to the social status of the dramatist may be only 
an inheritance from careless or prejudiced writers. A very 
superficial glance at the period gives some rather startling 
facts. Shakspere died a very influential citizen of Stratford 

1 Thomas Warton, History of English Poetry, edition of Hazlitt, 1871, IV, 
p. 88. 

2 Ward, Dramatic Literature, in, pp. 236, 248, 249. Brandes, William 
Shakespeare, i, p. 263. Halliwell-Phillips, Outlines, I, pp. 105, 262. Lee, 
William Shakespeare, p. 45. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 403 

and was buried in the chancel of his village church. Ben 
Jonson narrowly escaped knighthood ; and he and Michael 
Drayton were both immortalized in Westminster Abbey. 
John Fletcher was the son of a bishop. John Lyly was a 
University man and in favor at Court. Edward Allyn 
became the son-in-law of Dr. John Donne of St. Paul's. 
Allyn died wealthy and to-day Dulwich College is his monu- 
ment. Richard Btirbage was a large property holder : his 
portrait still hangs in Dulwich. 

In his life of Shakspere Mr. Halliwell-Phillips 1 gives 
a very significant passage. It is a quotation from " The 
Annales or General Chronicle of England, begun first by 
maister John Stowe and after him continued and augmented 
with matters forreyn and dornestique, auncient and moderne, 
unto the ende of this present yeere, 1614, by Edmond Howes, 
gentleman." The passage cites the English poets. Its sig- 
nificance is based on the fact that these are not men socially 
" off-color," but knights, esquires, and gentlemen. Howes 
says : " Our moderne and present excellent poets, which 
worthely fiorish in their owne workes, and all of them in my 
owne knowledge, lived togeather in this Queenes raigne ; 
according to their priorities, as neere as I could, I have 
orderly set downe." Then follows a long list from Gascoigne 
to Wither. Among them we notice Sir Edward Dyer, 
knight; Edmond Spenser, esquire; Sir Philip Sidney, knight; 
Sir John Harrington, knight ; Sir Francis Bacon, knight ; 
Sir John Davie, knight ; Master John Lillie, gentleman ; 
Maister George Chapman, gentleman ; M. Willi. Shakspere, 
gentleman ; Michael Drayton, esquire of the bath ; M. 
Christopher Mario, gentleman ; M. Benjamine Johnson, 
gentleman ; Master Thomas Deckers, gentleman ; M. John 
Flecher, gentleman. A long list of literary and dramatic 
names that seem, by this contemporary notice, to have been 
held in esteem, although they occupied every grade of social 

1 Halliwell-Phillips, Outlines, n, p. 155. 



404 LEMUEL WHITAKER. 

and civil position, from Fletcher, the son of a bishop, to 
Marlowe, the son of a shoemaker ; from Dekker in the Fleet 
to Bacon in the Court. 

We repeat, this entire subject of the social ill-repute of 
dramatists awaits the investigator. Our meagre glance at it 
encourages us in the belief that Mr. Fleay is not justified in 
assumiug that Drayton was ashamed of his connection with 
the theatre, or thought his dramatic work a degradation. It 
is hard to conceive of Michael Drayton, sober, staid, digni- 
fied, respectable, literary, well-connected, with hosts of friends, 
a great poet, with no dissipated habits, — it is hard to conceive 
of such a man hanging about a place of which he was ashamed; 
resorting to a haunt of low repute in order to earn a meal ; 
drawing his hat down over his eyes that recognition might 
not be followed by ostracism. Drayton's life was very quiet. 
He loved his friends and counted among them some of the 
chief poets and most learned scholars of his time. He did 
not feel degraded by association with the drama. On the 
contrary, his connection with the drama is part of the cumu- 
lative evidence that points to the respectability and influence 
of the career. It is a nice question as to just what consti- 
tuted "society" and "social position" in Elizabethan London. 
Here was a cosmopolitan city of some 150,000 people. Its 
interests were national and world-wide. Men of every class 
thronged here and each class must have formed its own social 
circle. No doubt there was a class opposed to the theatre : 
so there is to-day. This modern class still arraigns the work 
of the man of original genius, be his name Shakspere or 
Kipling. Perhaps all artists whose mode of life and thought 
are outside the conventional pale become isolated. 

But even if it were true that Drayton was ashamed of his 
dramas, this fact would not account for the absence of their 
publication. These plays were written in collaboration. 
Dekker continually published, yet he did not put these plays 
into print. This is also true of Webster and Middleton. 
Some other explanation must therefore be sought. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 405 

In Collier's edition of Henslowe's Diary there is a hint as 
to why these plays were not published. 1 We have "A note 
of all suche bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I 
have bought since the 3d of March 1598." Then follows a 
list of twenty-nine plays, among which are the following of 
Drayton's group : Black Batman, Read Cappe, Goochvine, 
2 p. black Battman, 2 pt. of Goodwine, Mad mans morris, 
Perce of Winchester. This appendix is made up of very 
many entries. Mr. Collier 2 explains that "all these inven- 
tories, &c, were taken in the Spring of 1598-9, and we may 
presume that they were made out in order to ascertain the 
stock of the Company of Lord Nottingham's Players in 
apparel, properties, and plays, before their removal from the 
Rose on the Bankside to the new theatre, the Fortune, in 
Golding Lane, Cripplegate." 

We are at liberty, then, to gather from these inventories 
that Drayton's plays did not belong to Drayton, nor to the 
collaborators, nor to Henslowe, himself; but to the Company 
that had in charge the destines of the Rose and the Fortune 
theatre. Hence the matter of publishing was wholly out of 
Drayton's hands. 

Again we find in the Diary this entry: 3 "Lent unto 
Robert Shaw, the 18 of rnarche 1599, to geve unto the 
printer, to staye the printing of patient gresell, the some of 
.... xxxxs." Upon this Mr. Collier speaks as follows : 4 
" No doubt it was thought that the printing of Patient Grissell 
would be injurious to the receipts of the theatre : a printer, 
who had obtained a copy of it, in March 1599, was therefore 
to be induced to relinquish the design of publishing the play 
by a present of 40s. This single fact, without adverting to 
others, will account for the very few plays that have come 
down to us in printed form, compared with the immense 
number written and irretrievably lost." 

1 Henslowe, p. 276. 2 Ibid., pp. xiii, xxxiv. 

8 Henslowe, p. 167. 4 Ibid., p. xxv. 



406 LEMUEL WHITAKER. 

Therefore, without any wild speculation, we have an expla- 
nation why Drayton's plays were not published when he 
issued his anthology of 1605. The plays were not his. 
When this 1605 edition was preparing, the plays were still 
in use at the Fortune theatre. 

But we have not here an explanation of why the plays 
may not have appeared in the 1619 folio. Shakspere's plays 
were not issued by himself; but they were published in 1623. 
And if Drayton had desired a precedent for inserting his 
plays in the folio of 1619, it was to be found in the plays that 
appeared in Ben Jonson's folio of 1616. Why did not 
Drayton's dramas appear in 1619, long after they probably 
had ceased to be called for upon the stage ? 

Outside of any consideration of the claims of other collabo- 
rators, my answer is that these dramas were not worth 
publishing. His definitive folio contained his best work, 
carefully polished. His dramas were not of sufficient excel- 
lence to warrant a place therein. This judgment of mine is 
mere conjecture: it cannot be otherwise, for Drayton's dramas 
are not with us. But this conjecture is based upon our esti- 
mate of Drayton's characteristics as an author. 

Michael Drayton was a Spenserian. Spenser stands as a 
great undramatic poet in a dramatic age. Spenser is said to 
have composed nine comedies ; but these, like Drayton's 
plays, are lost. The quality of his genius was apart from 
the dramatic temper of his great contemporaries. This lack 
in Spenser is tersely put by Prof. Beers : * — " Neither Spenser 
nor Pope satisfy long. We weary in time of the absence of 
passion and intensity in Spenser, his lack of dramatic power, 
the want of actuality in his picture of life, the want of brief 
energy and nerve in his style; just as we weary of Pope's 
inadequate sense of beauty." 

A fine summary of the manner of Spenser is given by 
Prof. Schelling: 2 — "What may be called the manner of 

'Beers, History of English Romanticism, 1899, p. 78. 
2 Schelling, Seventeenth Century Lyrics, 1899, p. xv. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 407 

Spenser (i. e., Spenser's way of imitating and interpreting 
nature artistically by means of poetic expression) may be 
summarized as consisting of sensuous love of beauty com- 
bined with a power of elaborated pictorial representation, a 
use of classical imagery for decorative effect, a fondness for 
melody, a flowing sweetness, naturalness and continuousness 
of diction amounting to diffuseness at times, the diffuseness of 
a fragrant, beautiful, flowering vine. We may say of the 
poets that employ this manner that they are worshippers 
of beauty rather than students of beauty's laws; ornate in 
their expression of the type, dwelling on detail in thought 
and image lovingly elaborated and sweetly prolonged. To 
such artists it is no matter if a play have five acts or twenty- 
five, if an epic ever come to an end, or if consistency of parts 
exist ; rapt in the joy of gentle onward motion, in the eleva- 
tion of pure poetic thought, even the subject ceases to be 
of much import, if it but furnish the channel in which the 
bright, limpid liquid continues musically to flow." 

Chaucer is a dramatist. He draws character and gives it 
life. Spenser is not a dramatist : he is a pictorial artist. 
His work is static. Drayton is of Spenser's school. In the 
Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer has given us more 
character-drawing than Drayton has in all of his voluminous 
work. In fact, in all his eclogues, legends, epistles, the 
Barrons Warres and the Polyolbion, Drayton has not enriched 
our literature by a single character creation. All through his 
work there is a lack of humor, a lack of movement, a lack 
of lyric condensation. There is a continuousness of theme, 
a preponderance of the epic element even when lyrical ex- 
pression is sought. There is a lack of firm grasp of actual 
life. He retards action by moralizing and reflecting. Some- 
times he even becomes didactic. He is no great narrator, 
although he has written so large a quantity of narrative 
verse. He does not state an action clearly or make it move. 
His pictures of life are apt to be tableaux, interspersed with 
reflection. Hence in the attempt to make a successful drama, 



408 LEMUEL WHITAKER. 

to weld epic and lyric for stage-movement, I take it that 
Drayton's work was deficient in humor, movement, charac- 
terization ; and was marked by a large epic interference. 
And, for literary purposes, he did better work in epic forms. 

It is a question whether such a man could construct a 
dramatic plot. I think he might do this. The author of the 
famous Sonnet 61, with its admirable repression, certainly 
ought to be able to block-out a plot. 

These Spenserian epic virtues and dramatic shortcomings 
are well portrayed in the two great works that Drayton wrote 
about the time of his dramatic period. England's Heroical 
Epistles partakes of dialogue form, in so far as one letter 
replies to another; but throughout the long series there is not 
a suggestion of dramatic dialogue. The Barrons Warres is a 
theme that had been treated dramatically by Marlowe's Edward 
i/and Jonson's The Fall of Mortimer. But notwithstanding 
the dramatic suggestiveness of the theme, Drayton's version 
of the story shows an utter absence of dramatic treatment. 
For illustration, note young Edward's attempt upon Mortimer 
in the sixth canto. Here is a natural dramatic climax. But 
the episode in the poem has no life or movement. It sinks 
to the level of a tableau with ethical musings and appeals. 
All dynamic force has been subordinated to an epic moralizing. 

After the close of his dramatic experience, I think Drayton 
never alludes to it in any of his subsequent work. As late 
as 1627, in his Elegy to Reynolds, he evinces no very high 
appreciation of dramatic authors or of dramatic products. 
All this is in consonance with his Spenserian bias. He 
recognized his limitations; and, very wisely, in 1619, rele- 
gated to oblivion that literary form out of which he had 
drawn all the money it would yield, and which would not 
enhance his reputation as an author. 

Perhaps Drayton's Spenserianism further explains why he 
never wrote a drama without collaboration. He needed the 
help and the stimulus of a collaborator. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON AS A DRAMATIST. 409 

Two groups of plays have been accredited to Michael 
Drayton. The Henslowe group has the positive testimony 
of the Diary. Of this group only one play has come down 
to us. Of the Fleay group, all the plays are extant. But 
Drayton's connection with these plays is based solely upon 
certain theories drawn from his association with Philip Hens- 
lowe. These theories assume that Drayton lost his patrons, 
ceased to write for the press, and was forced to work at the 
drama for a livelihood; that out of this necessity came both 
the Henslowe and the Fleay groups of plays ; that, after he 
found a new patron in Sir Walter Aston, he abandoned 
dramatic work ; and, because he was ashamed of his collabo- 
rators and had a coDtempt for the work, he published none 
of his plays. Hence the plays in the Fleay group are largely 
auonymous. The present writer has attempted to disprove 
all these theories. As a matter of fact, Drayton was a 
successful and prosperous man ; he never lacked generous 
and influential patrons ; he worked at the drama with men of 
literary ability ; his revision of earlier work kept him busy 
with the press until the appearance of his great anthology in 
1605. His neglect to publish his plays is fully accounted for 
by the fact that they were the property of the Company at 
the Fortune Theatre and in the further fact that his genius 
was epic rather than dramatic. There is nothing to justify 
the theories that associate Drayton's name with the Fleay 
group of plays. There is no external evidence that he had a 
hand in any play now extant except Sir John Oldeastle. 

Lemuel Whitaker. 



410 



LEMUEL WHITAKER. 



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INDEX. 



Admiral's Men, 392, 397. 

Allyn, 391, 393, 403. 

Aston, 382, 385, 387, 390, 409. 

Bacon, 400, 403. 

Beaumont, 378, 382, 393, 400. 

Bedford, 383, 385, 386, 387, 397. 

Beers, 406. 

Brandes, 397, 401, 402. 

Browne, 385. 

Burbage, 403. 

Chamberlain's Men, Lord, 392, 397. 
Chapman, 378, 394, 395, 403. 
Chaucer, 407. 
Chettle, 381, 394, 395. 
Chronicle Plays, 398. 
Collier, 405. 
Cooke, 386, 387. 
Croll, 400. 

Davies, 403. 

Dekker, 378, 379, 381, 393, 394, 403, 
404. 

Devereux, 384. 

Donne, 403. 

Dorset, 385. 

Drayton — chronicle plays, 399 ; col- 
laborators, 381, 393 ; patrons, 383, 
385 ; earnings, 380, 388, 391, 395 ; 
literary periods, 388, 390; total 
plays, 379, 380; work' for the 
press, 388 ; why he wrote dramas, 
397 ; why he did not publish his 
plays, 399, 405. 

Drummond, 385. 

Dyer, 403. 

Elizabeth, Queen, 385, 399. 



Elton, 379, 382, 383, 385, 386, 387, 

388, 393, 396, 399. 

Fleay, 378, 379, 382, 385, 386, 387, 

389, 392, 397, 400, 404. 

Fleay Group of Plays, 379, 382, 409. 
Fletcher, 393, 403, 404. 

Gascoigne, 403. 
Goodere, 385, 387. 

Hall, 378. 

Halliwell-Phillips, 400, 402, 403. 

Harrington, 386, 387, 403. 

Hathway, 381, 382, 394. 

Haughton, 396. 

Henslowe, 378, 379, 381, 383, 391, 

392, 393, 395, 396, 399, 405, 409. 
Henslowe Group of Plays, 379, 380, 

382, 383, 409. 
Heywood, 380, 394, 402. 
Howes, 403. 

James, King, 387, 389. 
Jonson, 378, 384, 385, 390, 393, 394, 
401, 403, 406, 408. 

Kipling, 404. 
Kyd, 378. 

Lee, 384, 402. 
Ling, 386. 
Lowell, 396. 
Lyly, 403. 

Macarthur, 400. 
Marlowe, 378, 403, 404, 408. 
Meres, 378, 390, 395. 
Middleton, 381, 393, 394, 404. 






INDEX. 



Munday, 381, 382, 394, 395. 

N T ashe, 378, 396. 

Oldcastle, Sir John, 382, 395, 399, 

400, 409. 
Ordish, 392. 

Pavier, 399. 
Peele, 378. 
Penniman, 378. 
Poe, 396. 
Pope, 406. 
Porter, 395. 

Eowley, 380, 394. 

Schelling, 398, 406. 



Shakspere, 378, 382, 385, 390, 392, 
393, 399, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 
406. 

Sidney, 403. 

Smith, 381. 

Social status of dramatist, 400. 

Southampton, 384. 

Spenser, 391, 403, 406, 407. 

Spenser Society, 385, 387. 

Spenser, Gabriel, 396. 

Stowe, 403. 

Ward, 384, 401, 402. 

War of the Theatres, 378. 

Warton, 401. 

Webster, 380, 381, 393, 394, 404. 

Wilson, 381, 382, 395. 

Wither, 385, 403. 



IB An '05 






